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Luas BXD - public consultation

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    #2
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    I can hardly wait for all the little knackers from Broombridge to descend on St.Stephen's Green and I bet all the Grafton Street traders are looking forward to them too! In all seriousness, the Broadstone/Liffey Jn alignment would be better retained for a heavy rail connection but with all the RPA/CIE politics I suppose that's not going to happen.


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    #3
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,889 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    Judgement Day wrote: »
    I can hardly wait for all the little knackers from Broombridge to descend on St.Stephen's Green and I bet all the Grafton Street traders are looking forward to them too! In all seriousness, the Broadstone/Liffey Jn alignment would be better retained for a heavy rail connection but with all the RPA/CIE politics I suppose that's not going to happen.

    Said Broombridge-ians don't actually use the trains though. Never heard of the story about the no women on the opening day? :D


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    #4
    monument
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 14,073 Mod ✭✭✭✭monument


    What can I say, I was bored... :o

    (at least part of this is inspired by stolen off somebody else)

    real map (PDF) at http://www.rpa.ie/Maps/Luas%20Line%20BX/Line%20BXD%20Map%200409.pdf


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    #5
    gjim
    Registered Users Posts: 1,122 ✭✭✭gjim


    It really is an absolute dogs dinner of a route between Parnell Square and College Green. When the plan was just to extend the Green Luas to Parnell St. the RPA themselves estimated that their preferred (convoluted) route was going to cost between 50% and 80% more than use any of the simple straightforward routes which were presented for public consultation (like the straight run down Westmoreland/O'Connell Streets or the loop around the back of trinity providing an interchange with Pearse Station). You can see why when you look at the map; twice as much utility re-routing, twice the disruption, twice as many stops and a new bridge; and all this cost and disruption to deliver NO EXTRA UTILITY to the users (in fact it is more indirect, will be confusing and awkward for those not familiar with it and will double the intersections with some of the busiest traffic corridors in the city).

    This stupid proposal has now been incorporated into a larger project.

    Between this, "metro" West and the nutty Lucan proposal, the RPA have proven themselves incapable of planning light rail routes. I really hope that they are disbanded before any of their projects besides Metro North get within a sniff of being implemented. The sooner the DTA takes over the better. A skeleton RPA can be retained to finish the projects already under construction but all their other route proposals are absolutely terrible. It's depressing.


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    #6
    Propellerhead
    Closed Accounts Posts: 394 ✭✭Propellerhead


    I'd be less inclined to blame the RPA, moreso the attitude of perceived stakeholders like Dublin Bus or the traders in Dawson Street who had the political clout with Marys Harney and O'Rourke, that killed the link between Abbey Street and the Green in the first place.

    Every project has taken decades to get off the ground because those who for whatever reason are opposed to them have the political clout
    In addition, you get a bunch of academics or armchair pundits who niggle away at tiny pieces of the puzzle, giving senior civil servants - whose only concept of transport is the daily drive from Mount Merrion to Merrion Street in their aircon Mercs - the firepower to to kill or maim the projects beyond recognition.

    Does anyone seriously believe that the separate Red and Green lines was a win win situation for anyone? I remember how Mary O'Rourke and Garret Fitzgerald thought it was a great thing how the central link between the Green and Abbey Street was going underground and on to Broadstone.

    In fact, the line of least resistance was followed and unsurprisingly, half a decade since the lines opened and fifteen years since the word 'Luas' was launched, we are still at the talk phase and nowhere near the shovel lifting phase.

    What a great little country we live in.


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